Friday, August 30, 2013

Does your motorbike look drab? Are you in the need of some quality panties or briefs? If so, Brandi Streusel can take care of your needs. Grease Coakes recently interviewed her, and she talked a little about both of her shops, Brandi's Custom Painting and Brandi's Panties.

Becky "Sha" Shamen has been out "on the road again" exploring. This time, she went on horseback to take a look at a place made for a group of motorcycle fans. Members of the group get to travel across twelve picturesque sims with a Southwest American desert theme. And crossing it, Becky came across numerous bikers, biker hangouts, and miles of dry desert. So how did Becky fare during her exploring?

Nydia Tungsten owns a stretch of beach which is "clothing optional," meaning if anyone wants to be nude there feel free, just behave yourself. But it never ceases to amaze her how so often, some people assume a lack of clothing means an interest in baser activities with just anyone. She had a few things to say on the matter, with a warning to those who still won't listen.

Thursday, August 29, 2013

For some in Second Life, shopping is a fun experience, and they take plenty of time to go about and see what places have what item for how much. While there's no shortage of customer-friendly stores and malls on the Grid, not everyone it seems has the buyer's interests at heart. Theonlyjohnny Resident writes about two places he came across which to him were charging a lot for just a little.

After being in hiatus for a while, Club Mardi Gras is being made ready to reopen. The Grand Re-Opening party will be on September 1 at 8PM SL time. DJ YuliaV will perform the music at the event with Kitacelia as hostess. The prize that night will be 500L.

Club Mardi Gras is at Kalmeere (47, 42, 24), and is a White Vixen Enterprises location.

Last weekend, DrFran attended "Bard on the Beach," an annual event involving the reading of various works of Shakespeare. Held at Crap Mariner's Nowhere sim in front of an audience of forty, much fun was had while the various participants went on stage and voiced their various parts from "Hamlet" to "The Tempest," to "Much Ado About Nothing." The event was held for the War Child charity.

Becky Shamen's back from exploring again. This time, her travels took her in search of detailed underwater areas in Second Life.While many places are water, how many sim owners bother to work on the scenery down below? Becky found some examples. So how did things go for Becky?

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

It's a week full of events in Second Life. August changes to September this week, and so the last chance to enjoy some vacation fun while it's still summer. There are a number of events from Areo Pines to the London sims. And there are the regularly scheduled events from live and DJ music parties, book and poetry readings, discussions, talk shows, races, and church services.

Late this month, the Wounded Warrior Benefit hosted not just one successful fundraising event, but two. Besides their regular event on the last Sunday of the month at Veteran's Isle, on August 18 the weekend before, there was a performance at Club Vet at "Hells Assassins World MC" in the Brimstone sim. The event by Frets Nirvana went from 6PM to a little past 9PM SL time, and was attended by close to three dozen. The concert itself was on a skybox in the middle of a huge racetrack on the sim. The goal was to raise 65,000 Lindens. Over 70,000 was raised.

A week later, Frets was back at Veterans Isle with three other musicians. Laidback Celt started things off at 5PM SL time, Shannon Oherlihy played at 6PM , Frets himself got on stage at 7PM, and Von Johin finished off the event from 8 to 9PM (Midnight EST). The crowd was a little smaller, with two dozen in the audience, and 65,000 Lindens were raised.

Frets hopes that Wounded Warriors will raise 13,000 US dollars in Second Life this year.

Monday, August 26, 2013

It's "Hot Nights" at Bay City, Second Life's best known urban area. This week-long celebration offers a car show, a couple "car wash" events, and the Miss Bay City beauty contest. Gemma Cleanslate dropped in to see the contest between several women (and one guy). So who won?

In Second Life, you can meet people from all across the world. Africa is no exception. Bixyl Shuftan met up with someone from the Africa Live group, and was given a tour of the community's place in the Estings sim. So what did Africa Live have to offer? Quite a bit.

Plot sales are going on now and will end when plots are sold out. To purchase a plot, visit http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Burning%20Man-%20Deep%20Hole/215/74/27 and pay the vendor.

This year’s theme--Cargo Cult! Learn more about it at http://www.burningman.com/art_of_burningman/bm13_theme.html More than 5,000 residents attended BURN2 2012, and this year will be even bigger, with more sims and more plots! Come join the fun!

If you have any questions about plot sales, BURN2, or Burning Man, please email info@burn2.org.

Some important dates include:

Plot sales end 09/01/13

Building starts 9/17/13

Building ends 10/12/13

BURN2 Cargo Cult opens 10/19/13 and ends 10/27/13

Builders and artists agree to comply with the Ten Principles of Burning Man and BURN2 (http://www.burn2.org/ten-principles) and the BURN2 Builder Guidelines (http://www.burn2.org/Builderguidelines). Builders and artists agree to comply with Linden Lab’s Terms of Service and Community Standards.

What makes BURN2 unique? BURN2 is the only official virtual Burning Man Regional and is an entirely resident supported event in Second Life.

We encourage you to use the following labels and hashtags when you write about the event:

BURN2, #burn2 . We will promote those tags to make it easier for people to find your content.

Saturday, August 24, 2013

Brandi Streusel, whom already has a business in giving color to motorbikes, Brandi's Custom Painting, has gotten another line of work. Her new business "Brandi's Panties," (listed on Facebook as Brandi's Shop in Second Life - images may be iffy for work), has been doing well. Here she is taking a break on her drawing board.

No word how her business is with Australians, as her goods are "down under." ;-)

In Janurary, Linden Lab bought "Blocksworld," a game described as a mix of lego and Minecraft" designed for use on the iPad. At the time, it was one of a number of acquisitions by Linden Lab that appeared to some to be shots in the dark. Recently however, Blocksworld has been doing quite well.

According to New World Notes, Rod Humble announced that Blocksworld had rose to become the third most popular of Apple's iPad application, "Woot, number 3 in the appstore for Blocksworld HD!" In the words of Hamlet Au, "For the first time in its 10 year+ history, Second Life is not Linden Lab's sole hit product." The game was being downloaded at a rate greater than "Candy Crush," which was making "an estimated $880,000 a day. If Blocksworld made just a fourth of that … it would be making more money than Second Life."

Among the responses Hamlet got was, "And how does this help the SL community exactly?" Hamlet reminded that Second Life's source of revenue, land tiers, has been in decline, and before there had been the danger of eventually "Second Life at ultimate risk of going up on the auction block in a fire sale - and who knows what would happen to it then." That it now had another source of revenue, perhaps it would be inclined to take chances in finally lowering it's land tiers. Hamlet was also confident that many of Blocksworld's fanbase would eventually be inclined to try Second Life, suggesting that Linden Lab revive Teen Second Life for young Blocksworld users.

It's good news for Linden Lab that it's revenue problems are starting to ease. Whether that means the fortunes will soon spread to Second Life, time will tell.

Friday, August 23, 2013

Gemma Cleanslate recently took a trip to Areo Pines Park. The park, noted for it's horseback riding and nature trails, is currently having it's summer fair. She took a look at the various rides and attractions, some what one would expect at a fair, others a bit unusual. So how enjoyable is the fair?

Earlier this year, Grease Coakes (John Krauss in real life) broke into the published fiction market with his children's story "Ginny Griffin Goes to School." Recently, he finished a sequel to the tale of the young girl, "Ginny Griffin and friends." Grey Lupindo interviewed Grease about the book, and when it will be out.

Jasmine Dawn Shuftan attended the Tuesday night town meeting at Steelhead. Among the subjects at hand was the recount of their recent mayoral elections, "Fuzz and his commitee have personally counted the ballots and have come up with the same answer as Jimmy. Jobias has won by a single vote. However we are investigating the ballots themselves ... just because."

Here is a statement by Jobias about the recount:

"Bah! In time, you will come to accept and respect me. I would be there to tell you this myself, but as A SMALL number of you seem to be against the election results, I felt it best to stay safely away from any objects being thrown from me." -Jobias

Jasmine met up with Willow Leafstorm, a member of the "Browncoats." This organization sprung up in resistance to Jobias, determined to keep him from taking office. There are "No Jo" posters going around, Jobais' picture with the international "not allowed" sign over it.

Jobias himself reportedly will be attending the next Friday Night ball at Steelhead, the theme of the party being "Villains Night." There are also stories of a vixen from out of town going around Steelhead, asking about Jobias.

Thursday, August 22, 2013

Following the death of the noted musician Michael Jackson in June 25th 2009, a number of memorials and tributes were created for the "King of Pop." Three years later, most are long gone. But one that remains open is Neverland Valley. Made to look like the home of the reclusive singer, there are numerous rides, a zoo, and other attractions here.

Last week, some Second Life users of Facebook were worried when there were whispers going around about accounts of Second Life users being deleted. While there seems to be some truth to this, the number seems relatively small. Of the fans of the Second Life Newser page, the number of "Likes" went down by about ten, or about 2 percent of the total.

Much of the responses are the same now as then, from "just change the name," to accusations of bait and switch. Hamlet Au of New World Notes recommended instead of using account names as Facebook names, create a page for the Second Life account name. He also suggested since Second Life co-founder Cory Ondrejka has become one of Facebook's top engineers and "brought over about had a oxen other Linden engineers to the Facebook team, … any … attention Second Life gets from Facebook's higher ups is more likely to be positive than negative." Facebook itself insists they do not go looking for people to delete, but that most accounts that are taken offline are from complaints by other users.

For yours truly, most of what I post is about Second Life, very little about real life activities, and so my name on the billion member social site remains what it is. It's simpler that way. Also, the number of fans on the Newser page has been growing again. So it appears the deletions are over, for now.

On another note, Facebook recently made International News. A Khalil Shreateh tried to alert them about a weak spot in their security. But he was ignored. His response, using the exploit to post on CEO Mark Zuckerberg's page about the weakness. Naturally, the response came within minutes.

Although there is a million US dollar reward for pointing out vulnerabilities, Facebook refuses to pay Shreateh. The official reason is that he violated the TOS. But as Shreateh is a Palestinian, perhaps Zuckerberg didn't want to appear to be sending money to the antagonists of Israel, America's best friend in the Middle East. Since then however, Shreateh has reportedly gotten a number of IT job offers, plus a sum of money raised by supporters in an effort organized by cybersecurity company BeyondTrust.

Becky Shamen's explorations took a slight detour after she bought a suit of armor at one place as a souvenir. Wearing it made her feel like going Medieval, so she did a search for a few places in Second Life where one could be a knight in shining armor. So what did she find?

The Marketplace isn't always what it's cracked up to be. But sometimes one has to worry more about glitches. Theonlyjohnny has a few things to say about the trouble he had with shopping via the Marketplace from his search jammed full of demo items to being outright scammed.

Reminder !Plots are still available for the October burn2 in Second LifeGet
over to Deep Hole and get yours!If you don’t want a plot you can always
volunteer for this big event. Check the website . We are looking for Rangers and
greeters and other jobs are available!You can check out the whole Burn2 at
http://burn2.org/

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Its a week full of events in Second Life. Check out Ghostville at the LES art sim. Live it up at the London City Carnival. Or you can attend the regularly scheduled DJ and live music events, races, book and poetry readings, discussions and talk shows, and church services.

In the Linden Blog this week, it was announced Project Shunshine, also known as Server-Side Baking, would be rolled out onto the Grid.

This week, the server component of Project Sunshine
will go live across the entire grid! This means that all the
improvements we discussed in our previous post will be available to
everyone in Second Life.

It’s important to remember
that you need to be using an up-to-date Viewer to enjoy these
improvements. If you’re still using an outdated Viewer, the server-side
changes rolling out now will cause you to see some avatars as broken or
incomplete. As of this week, all avatars will be using the new system and will appear broken to you if you don't update.

Besides the official viewers, there are several third-party viewers that have been updated to handle server-side baking, such as Firestorm, Singularity, and Cool VL. For those who use a viewer not updated to handle the new way textures are loaded, in the words of Firestorm's Tonya Souther it's the "Last Call." As she sees it, if one's computer can't handle the newer viewers, it's time to get a new machine or bid Second Life goodbye for a while.

According to someone in a group chat I was in last night, Server-Side could come early as today:

A Reminder for Everyone... SSA -Day Tomorrow.. ServerSide Appearence Arrives Tomorrow! Tomorrow LL rolls out Server Side Appearance. Anyone using an outdated viewer will have problems seeing other avatars at Arinultra and anywhere else in Second Life. All those WITH current SSA enabled viewers should notice a huge improvement. This will pretty much put an end to all those endless gray, blurry, or cloudy "wardrobe malfunctions." Up-to-date Viewers are Required such as Firestorm, Singularity or others, including the basic LL platform.

So the day some of us have been anticipating, or dreading, has finally arrived.

Logging into Second Life last night, I found myself presented with a new updated terms of service. The choice was pretty simple, sign if you want to continue logging on the Grid. Many of us just automatically sign without a thought. Myself, I read it, noticed a few things, and expected to hear about more before long.

So what was the result of this new TOS? In a couple groups, worried residents expressed their concern, as well as some IMs aimed at me. A few people asked me if Linden Lab would be doing away with Adult content. While it is true some people are jumpy every time there's a change, the recent blunder with third-party Linden exchangers has rightfully shaken the already shaky confidence residents have with the Lab.

There are two lengthy forum threads discussing the TOS, in the official Linden Forums, and Second Life Universe. Among the changes noted was the line "You are not our employee." Was this to limit the Lab's liability of the behavior of it's employees when on SL off the clock, putting in writing that they owed content creators and others who benefited Second Life nothing, or a possible defense against people who were tricked by residents pretending to be Lindens?

The general idea, at least among those not confused as hey, is that the changes were a "cover your butt" move to protect the Lab from additional possible legal complaints. One commented, "LL has a really good TOS in the sense that they have it in mostly proper order along with a lot of legalese that scares most people. There is always that one who isn't scared with money to either burn or feels strongly enough about something that will push it to the envelope (right or wrong) through the courts. But at the same time, loopholes galore all through out it because they just can't CYA everything."

There were no shortage of comments, including a proposed TOS by the former Pathfinder Linden.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Gemma Cleanslate heard about a new roleplay community springing up: Salt Lake City. Taking place in the 1860s, this Wild West area will have no shortage of situations to deal with, from hostile Indians, to outlaws, to the day to day rigors of life on the frontier.

DrFran Babcock took a break from her exploring to do a little shopping. Or rather, her alt did the shopping. Her ground rules were that they had to be free or nearly free, and of course be fashionable. So what did she find?

"What career path will you take when your dad makes video games and your
mother is a graphics designer? Of course: you most likely become a
successful entrepreneur in the virtual universe of Second Life, crafting
and selling high end fashion for women.

"Elie Spot aka Tiffany
Mitchell joined SL whilst attending college and has been a force to be
reckoned with in virtual clothing design for some time.

"But not
only that: she runs the popular DIY blog offbeatandinspired.com and most
recently became creative editor at women's business publication 'Cake
& Whiskey Magazine.'

"Could it possibly be that her
experience in Second Life - creating a brand from scratch and
interacting with a global customer base - has helped her to thrive and
get recognition for her talents in the physical world?

"Who would have thought that playing dress-up with avatars is not tons of only fun but can mean serious business as well...."

The Steelhead Community recently held an election for mayor. The two challengers against the incumbent TotalLunar Eclipse were Willow Leafstorm and Jobias Barthelmess. Lunar has been a popular mayor and Willow the owner of a well-attended dance club. So Jobias as a self - described "villain" was not expected to do well on election day. To the surprise of practically everyone, Jobias won. Soon after, Second Life Newser met up with the man in the black hat. Jobias told of he had a few plans in store for Steelhead, plans that include cutting down the forest, strip-mining the land, sending the kids to work in the mines, and making the non-humans wear collars.

I imagine that's what my Pandaren character would be thinking once she realized where she was. Just the other day I finally reached Level 85, and with it came the questline that led to the expedition to Pandaria. For most other adventurers, they would truly be strangers in a strange land. But for Wen-Li (Weynli), it would be coming to the land her ancestors left centuries ago. A land rejoining the world after thousands of years of isolation with the parting of the mists that once hid it from view, a world divided by a conflict not even the Pandaren from the Wandering Isle could escape from. To help heal the broken world, those adventurers leaving had to chose a side: Alliance or Horde. And now, how to help her ancestral homeland in this time of trial while still fulfilling the obligations to her faction?

She might not have much time as things are starting to get interesting, as the trailer for "Siege of Ogrimmar" suggests (Click Here).

A week ago on Saturday Aug 10th, the final event of the Relay For Life season took place: The Wrap-Up Party. Avatars were dropping in at 11AM and before at the RFL Wrapup 1 and RFL Wrapup 2 sims. They danced to the music to Trader Whiplash's T-1 Radio. as more and more people arrived. The Relay Committee congratulated the teams and Relayers, announcing that overt 98 million Lindens, or $392,000 US Dollars, had been raised for the season. Once again, a new seasonal record was reached.

A number of awards were given out. This included the Spirit of Relay Awards.

Spirit of Relay Team Award: Team Petunnia's Garden.

Spirit of Relay Individual Award: Oldesoul Eldemar

Also given out were the Top Conventional (Website) Fundraising Awards.

Top Team Conventional (Website) Fundraising Awards3rd Place: Relay for Hope2nd Place: SL Music Races For A Cure1st Place: Circle of Life

And with this event, the Relay for Life fundraising season for 2013 officially comes to a close. There are some off-season events, such as the annual Christmas fundraiser. But for most Relayers, this marks the end of their fundraising until March 8, 2014 when the next season begins. The theme: "Journey of Promise."

Friday, August 16, 2013

Becky "Sha" Shamen continues her explorations across the Grid. For her article today, she checked out a number of Second Life locations based on real ones. She made a list of what she considered the best ones. From the Titanic to the Alamo to the Oval Office, there are no locations quite like these.

Come meet the staff of Second Life Newser as we throw a little bash on the beach. There will be music provided by DJs, and some beach fun such as swimming and jet skis. The fun starts at 12 Noon SL time on Saturday Aug 17, and will go on for at least two hours.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

Theonlyjohnny came across a horror-themed sim in his travels: Siden. Here, one takes on various script-controlled frightful enemies. But there's more than just racking up a body count. One also has to watch one's condition, and the detail in the buildings and terrain is great.

Two neat looking games have appeared in Second Life recently. One is a Star Trek game created by Loki Eliot. Loki had been "experimenting" with creating "Star Trek" style ships, and decided to make a battleship game out of it. The game pits a Federation ship against a Klingon one. The Federation ship has stronger shields and longer range weaponry, but the Klingon ship has more guns.

Second Life Newser may do a more in-depth article on the game. But for now, readers can check for more information on the game on Eliot's blog (Click here). One fan, Natascha Rantt, made a video based on the game (Click here).

The other game is based on the Japanese anime "Attack on Titan." It was created by a fan, Moeka Kohime, and quickly gained a following. Shamera Kohime (no relation) did a good article on the gameplay (click here). To get into the action, one needed to get uniforms in addition to power swords and "3D maneuver gear" that allows you to run and jump around like a movie ninja.

"The detail on the gear is amazing, and there are quite a few
animations included for flying through the air, falling, landing,
running, attacking, etc. I've certainly spent hours at this place just
honing my Titan killing skills ..."

There was just one problem. Although the uniforms were free, the gear was not. So technically that was a violation of the anime's copyright, owned by Kodansha Ltd. And it seems they ordered to Moeka to stop selling the equipment. The vendor where it was available is gone, with the words "this product is discontinued" in it's place. The arena itself is still up for those who already bought the gear at MontSaint Michel (226/144/3901). But it seems for now no more can get into the action.

In the meantime, the future is looking iffy for the "Attack on Titan" game, much to the irritation of the anime's fans in Second Life. Star Trek fans, secure in the deal made earlier, can boldly go and play Loki's game to their heart's content.

DrFran continues her series on Second Life's original landss. Her travels took her to Welsh, which to her delight held more original content than in others of the first sims she visited. So what does this land hold? DrFran had quite a busy time writing down what she found.

It was last week on August 6 in which the Steampunk community of Steelhead held their mayoral elections. Yesterday at the Steelhead town hall, interim mayor Jimmy Branagh announced the results. Three candidates had run for the office, TotalLunar Eclipse the incumbent, and two challengers, Willow Leafstorm and Jobias Barthelmess. Jobias, whom was involved in an attempted shooting of Steelhead's Sheriff Fuzzball Ortega, was a much criticized candidate at public meetings. Even he himself during the debate admitted he wasn't the most popular of those running.

So imagine the surprise when it was announced at the August 13th town hall meeting that Jobias had won the elections! Timmy, who gave the announcement, was described as worried, "he sounded odd." This led to a lengthy debate among the people at the meeting, and whether or not the votes should be screened for accounts less than a couple weeks old.

Lunar reminded the crowd that while Jobias has been accused of many plots, he had never been convicted of them. When talk turned to tarring and feathering him, Lunar tried to calm them down, "Killing or maiming him would earn you jail time, there is still a law here." He asked that if people insisted on plotting that he be left out of it.

Speaking to Lunar after the meeting, he commented of the results, "I am quite frankly shocked. I have served under another mayor before I will try and keep neutral on my feelings." Willow, who was also there, had this to say, "Yes, I have a statement. There is no way that man, Jobless Brothelmess is taking office on my watch. He is a scoundrel and a criminal. My duty is to protect Steelhead."

As of now, there is no official statement from Jobias. Details are still coming in about this upset election in Steelhead.(Editor's note: the election results are part of a community roleplay, so expect more twists and turns)